In 1996, the New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik described London’s River Cafe as “the best Italian restaurant in Europe.” High praise is certainly justified, but that specific claim might not be wholly true. As Rose Gray, the restaurant's late co-founder, told the New Times Times a few years later: “we cook Italian food, but we're not an Italian restaurant."

Beside these dishes, The River Cafe Look Book presents beautiful, inspirational photography to inspire and spur on home cooks keen to capture some of the cosmopolitan joie de vivre often found in this restaurant’s kitchen. A shot of an aerial sunset, taken through a plane window, lies next to a orange-red plate of pappa al pomodoro; a pair of high heels abandoned in a hedge sits next to an image of tangled spaghetti lemon; and a can of tangled green leaves lies beside an image of the River Cafe’s zucchini salad. The River Cafe Look Book is a new cookery book from the acclaimed London restaurant that Ruth Rogers CBE launched with Rose Gray in 1987. Over the decades, the restaurant has introduced Londoners to modern, Italian cuisine, and trained up some of the world’s best-known chefs, including Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.Partly in homage to those last years, Ruth created The River Cafe Look Book, published towards the end of 2022. In a rainbow of colour it pairs surprising images with pictures of River Cafe food – a plate of spaghetti vongole and some wilting tulips, a pink telephone and a raspberry sorbet – the recipes for which follow. “I was asked to do a cookbook for children,” Rogers says. “But [the photographer] Matthew Donaldson and I thought perhaps you could do a book that works for 12 year olds and 82 year olds. After Richard fell, he had quite severe neurological problems. Somebody gave me these books, which paired images – a Vermeer painting with the moon, a baby’s profile with the edge of the sea – inviting you to make connections. People with autism, people with dementia see things in that. And Richard loved looking at these books. So we thought maybe we could do the same kind of thing with food, pair of photographs together – the look book.” It’s that thing,” she says, “if you love them, let them go. They always appear with that look in their eyes, asking for a word, and you know it’s over.” She smiles. “Later, they say: when I worked with you my biggest problem with the day was making my ravioli thin enough to see through. Now they talk about worries about the electricity bill. Owning your own place often takes you further and further away from the kitchen.”

Tim ate Pumpkin and feta fritters with yogurt dip; steamed halibut with sorrel, lettuce and herb sauce Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer In this new title Rogers, accompanied by the River Cafe’s current co-head chefs Sian Wyn Owen and Joseph Trivelli, set out to educate a new generation of home cooks, with a book that’s equally well suited to children as it is to adult beginners. The colorful book is a master class in graphic joy, to say nothing of what will happen in your kitchen.' – Air Mail With more than 50 iconic recipes, each of which has been masterfully adapted and revised by the River Cafe chefs specifically for those new to cooking, the fabulous dishes in this collection bring the warmth, beauty, and sumptuous ease of Italian family home-cooking to cooks of all levels of kitchen expertise - including your kids! Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the gnocchi for 3 minutes until they rise to the surface. Remove with a slotted spoon.There are two places that I feel safe, inspired,” she says. “The River Cafe and my home. I mean, everybody has different ways of dealing with grief. There’s no right way or wrong way. My way has always been not to stop. Just keep going. And then one day I might just fall on the ground.” I ask Rogers about her “restaurant children”, that legion of chefs who have worked and trained at the River Cafe in the last 35 years – Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall among them – and gone on to set up places of their own. Does she always look out for them? Zucchini Salad. Photography by Matthew Donaldson This River Cafe salad looks great and is fun to make with kids See a vase of dramatically wilting tulips set next to spaghetti alle vongole, as readers of this new book will, and they’ll “recognise the shared curves and complex and graceful warp of stalk in the pasta.” Its latest cookbook, The River Cafe Look Book, continues in this tradition. Written by Ruth Rogers and current head chefs Sian Wyn Owen and Joseph Trivelli, the book presents simple recipes, well suited to child cooks as well as those less experienced in the kitchen.